North America,  Travel,  U.S.

chicago week ten

May 22, 2023 /

This week, I started looking at houses in the Lincoln Square area. The owner is a young Indian couple. They will return to India for a three-week wedding the next day. Unfortunately, the day before I came, their washing machine was broken and it was too late to fix it, so I had to go to the public laundry room near their home to do my laundry. After coming to the United States for so many years, I have only seen public coin-operated laundry rooms in American dramas, but I have never been there. The first time I came, there was a staff who helped change the change, and then there was a machine to exchange paper money for 25 cents coins for washing clothes. Think about how the technology is so advanced now, why the public laundry room is still so backward, only coin-operated laundry. If it is in China, it must be solved by scanning a QR code with a mobile phone! Their kitchen refrigerator is full of authentic Indian spices and ingredients, so happy to be able to cook Indian food. They are vegan so I respect that they only do veggie here, I made moong dal tadka and chai chai, both were good. Tadka is a common cooking technique in India. It is to heat whole or powdered spices (usually including cumin seeds) in oil or ghee Indian ghee to let the spices release more fragrance, and finally pour them on the prepared dishes. . They have a special utensil for making tadka, also called tadka, which is a deep bowl with a long handle that can be heated directly on the fire.

A couch-surfing friend posted a weekend of Skokie Festival of Cultures activities, with cultural performances by locals from various countries around the world. The program list looks very interesting. Went to this festival on Saturday with another local couch-surfer I met the day before and headed straight to the main stage just in time for the beginning of the Colombian dancing, cumbia originated in Colombia but the cumbia in Mexico and other countries in Latin America is not like them very different. After the dance, taking advantage of the gap time, we went to the various cultural booths next to us and took a "Cultural Festival Passport" from the first American booth. In the blank space of the stamp, if all the stamps are covered, you can go to the entrance to exchange for small gifts at the end. We strolled slowly one by one. Each booth had handicrafts of their country’s culture, small interactive activities, local snacks, etc. We chatted with the person in charge of some booths, and most of them introduced us enthusiastically. Their culture, learned more about that country or culture from them. In order, I saw the booth of Turkey first, and then the booth of Tibet, which is not divided by country, but by culture, so the Tibet booth mainly introduces Tibetan culture. But when I mentioned to the person in charge sitting there that I went to Tibet from Sichuan five years ago, he didn’t respond much, but told my friend that the Chinese government forcibly taught Mandarin in Tibetan schools and deprived their children of I understand his position and thoughts on the right and opportunity to learn his own Tibetan since childhood, but I didn’t expect this to be the first thing he said.

Turkish
Turkish
Tibet

The next booth is from Thailand. I saw a few smiling Thai ladies, and I felt a lot more friendly. I greeted them with "Sawadhika", and they became more enthusiastic, and asked me where I had been in Thailand. A few aunts next to me are carving fruits: watermelon, papaya, cucumber, carrot, white radish, etc., which are beautiful. At this moment, the Uzbekistan dance performance began again on the main stage. The formation was quite large. There were more than 20 musical instrument dance performers on the stage, most of them were teenagers, and their costumes were very delicate. When I returned to the booth after the performance, I saw the booths of Uzbekistan and Russia, as well as the booths of Pakistan, Norway, Mexico, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Laos, and Taiwan.

Russian
Uzbekistan
Russian
Russian
Norwegian
mexican
Luxembourg
Lithuanian
Laotian
South Korea
Taiwanese

At noon, the opening ceremony of the main stage began. The organizers of the booths of various cultures came to the stage in order to greet each other holding the national flag. Finally, the organizers of each country’s culture held a huge American flag on the stage and hung it up to become a stage. background. The United States is indeed a melting pot of cultures, composed of various cultures.

After that, go back and visit other booths: Ireland, Indonesia, India, Ethiopia, Philippines, China. At the Ethiopian booth, the name of the sign is "Habesha". The person in charge told me that Habesha is a northern ethnic group in Ethiopia. There was an instrument at the Indonesia booth that looked interesting.

After that, there will be booths from Bulgaria, Belize and Azerbaijan. There is a traditional musical instrument in Bulgaria, similar to bagpipes, made of sheepskin, and the performer gave us a live performance. All the people at the booth in Azerbaijan were wearing their traditional costumes, and the male costumes were equipped with a lot of long bullets. They looked cool and took a photo with them. The last two stands are Armenian and Assyrian. I didn't know the word Assyrian, but I checked the Chinese name "Assyrian Empire". It was a country that arose in Mesopotamia from 935 BC to 612 BC.

After seeing all the booths, the main stage began to perform Korean drums and dances. The Korean aunts in the performance had exquisite makeup, and the drumming was very passionate, intoxicating, and very happy, which was especially contagious. The second performance of drumming and dancing after that was also very interesting. Their headdresses were exaggerated and brightly colored big hats, which reminded people of ice cream balls.

After watching the performance, I went to the food stalls, but I was a little disappointed to find that there were very few special international foods, and my friends and I were not very interested. So I continued to watch the show: Indonesian dance, the costumes are extremely exquisite. Afterwards, some children were performing taekwondo in front of the Korean booth, and the on-site interaction was also very interesting.

My friends and I left just before 4, but there were more celebrations afterwards and the following Sunday. A friend is going to eat at an Afghani restaurant because he is a Muslim and can only eat halal. Because he is a regular customer here, he knows the proprietress very well. After ordering, we chatted with the proprietress, and saw a photo on the wall that was very similar to the Leshan Giant Buddha in Sichuan, and it was also a stone Buddha statue carved on the rock wall of the mountain. After dinner, I chatted with the proprietress again. I talked about the proportion of Muslims in Afghanistan. More than 99% are Muslims. I also talked about religion, culture, women's rights, education and other issues. I learned a lot of knowledge from her that I didn't know before. And I learned from Indian friends that the food in Afghanistan is somewhat similar to that in India, and some of the names are similar.

On Sunday, I visited Lincoln Square next to it. There were many German immigrants in this area many years ago, and of course there are many descendants of Germans. They went to a deli and vegetable store famous for selling German sausages. The German sausage and beer restaurant on the top terrace just opened yesterday because the weather is warmer. Afterwards, I strolled for two or three hours along the shore of Lake Michigan with my friends. The weather was particularly good, and many people had picnics and basked in the sun by the lake or on the lawn, which was very pleasant. There are also plenty of bikers, walkers and runners along the lake. There are also many sailboats and private yachts on the lake. It’s finally time to enjoy summer in Chicago!

I went to the famous Lula Cafe in Logan Square for dinner with my friends, and ordered pasta "yiayia", which is the most interesting pasta I have ever eaten. It contains bucatini pasta (hollow), butter, fried garlic chips, feta cheese and cinnamon powder on top. It sounds weird to put these ingredients together, but it’s actually quite delicious, and maybe I can copy it myself someday. Seeing that the tofu in the refrigerator was about to expire, I made Indian-style scrambled tofu.

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